Curated category
20th-century American historians
- James M. McPhersonJames M. McPherson once said that a historian's job is to cut through the myths a people tell about itself, and get closer to reality.
- Ezra PoundEzra Weston Loomis Pound was born on the 30th of October 1885 in a two-story clapboard house in Hailey in the Idaho Territory.
- John A. GarratyJohn Arthur Garraty was born on the 4th of July, 1920, a date that would seem almost too on-the-nose for a man who spent his career writing American history.
- Charles A. BeardCharles Austin Beard was born on the 27th of November 1874 in Knightstown, Indiana, and by the time he died in 1948, he had become the most controversial…
- Daniel YerginDaniel Howard Yergin was born on the 6th of February 1947 in Los Angeles, California, and by the time he finished his fourth book, he had written what would…
- Lynn ThorndikeLynn Thorndike coined a phrase that historians still use every day, and he did it almost in passing. In A Short History of Civilization, published in 1926…
- Marshall HodgsonMarshall Goodwin Simms Hodgson died on the 10th of June, 1968, while jogging on the campus of the University of Chicago. He was 46.
- George Dyson (science historian)George Dyson was born on the 26th of March 1953 into a family of remarkable minds. His father was the theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson.
- C. Vann WoodwardC. Vann Woodward was born on the 13th of November 1908, in Vanndale, Arkansas, a small town that bore his own mother's family name and had served as a county…
- John Patrick DigginsJohn Patrick Diggins declared, near the end of his life, "I am left of right and right of left." That phrase captures something essential about a man who…
- George SartonGeorge Sarton buried his life's work in a garden in Belgium. It was August 1914, and German soldiers were advancing on Ghent.
- Hans JonasHans Jonas died at his home in New Rochelle, New York, on the 5th of February 1993, at the age of 89. He was a philosopher born in Germany who later became…
- Allan NevinsAllan Nevins grew up on a farm in Camp Point, Illinois, the son of a stern Presbyterian farmer of Scottish descent and a German-heritage mother named Emma.
- Shelby FooteShelby Dade Foote Jr. was born on the 17th of November 1916 in Greenville, Mississippi. His father worked for Armour and Company, moving the family from…
- George F. KennanGeorge Frost Kennan sent a telegram from Moscow on the 22nd of February, 1946, that would reshape American foreign policy for the rest of the twentieth…
- Joan KellyJoan Kelly asked a simple question in 1976, and the field of history has never been quite the same. That question was: Did women have a Renaissance?
- Stephen GreenblattStephen Greenblatt once recalled the moment he realized the term "New Historicism" had taken on a life of its own. When he heard that American universities…
- Victor Davis HansonVictor Davis Hanson grew up on a farm outside Selma, California, in the San Joaquin Valley, on land his family had worked since the 1870s.
- Claudia GoldinClaudia Dale Goldin was born in the Bronx, New York City on the 14th of May 1946. Her father Leon Goldin worked as a data processing manager at Burlington…
- Bruce CattonBruce Catton grew up in Benzonia, Michigan, listening to old men describe what it felt like to march into battle. He was born on the 9th of October, 1899…
- E. Merton CoulterE. Merton Coulter served as the first president of the Southern Historical Association in 1934. He edited the Georgia Historical Quarterly for fifty years.
- Stephen B. OatesStephen Baery Oates spent decades asking a single uncomfortable question: what does it cost a person to fight for equality in America?
- Lewis MumfordLewis Mumford was born on the 19th of October 1895 in Flushing, Queens, and spent the next nine decades becoming one of the most wide-ranging thinkers…
- Eric FonerEric Foner, born on the 7th of February 1943 in New York City, is the historian that college professors reach for most often.
- Joel WhitburnJoel Carver Whitburn was born on the 29th of November 1939 in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, and by the time he died on the 14th of June 2022, he had done something…
- Hans KohnHans Kohn was born on the 15th of September 1891, in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, into a German-speaking Jewish family.
- Michael RostovtzeffMichael Rostovtzeff arrived in the United States in 1920, a refugee from a revolution he would spend the rest of his life trying to understand.